Other Fan Fiction ❯ Living the Shadows ❯ Escaping the Shadow ( Prologue )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

The eleven-year-old girl stealthily made her way down the corridor toward what she hoped would be an exit. Sweat was already beading on her forehead as the pain of leaving her protected quarters began to set in but she pushed it back and concentrated on making her escape. Breathing heavily she worked her way down the hall trying to fight the assault on her senses. Stopping, she froze as she heard someone coming her way. She closed her light green eyes and focused on finding them and making them believe she wasn't there. The pain of such a task was almost unbearable, especially without Lily or Flame with her but she couldn't get caught now. If she stayed here, she knew she would die.

The two men came closer and their thoughts and emotions flooded her and threatened make her loose her concentration. They faltered for a moment, as if sensing her, and one of them looked right at her. She held her breath and began her task anew, willing the man to believe there was no-one there.

She had done this hundreds of times before for Dr. Whitney; or the Monster to the girls here. There were only a few left now. The ones he saw as most valuable. How lucky for her. Focusing solely on the men before her, she felt herself sink to the floor from the excertion but her mind never wavered. Finally, to her relief, the men walked off as if nothing had happened and the barrage of pain on her senses from being so near to them began to recede.

After they had moved completely out of her range she took a deep breath and once again pushed back her pain. Her head felt like lead and she was panting as her light brown hair clung to her skull from sweating profusely. But she had done it. Now all that was left to do was make it the rest of the way out of here. She pushed herself up onto badly shaking legs and stumbled the rest of the way out of the building.

Once out she ran as fast as her trembling body could carry her. She had no idea where she was going, no plan outside of her escaping the lab, but that didn't matter. She didn't know how long she had been running but she finally collapsed in a dark alley in what she hoped was a long distance from the laboratory compound. Whimpering from exhaustion and pain she curled up in a ball behind a giant refrigerator box and fell into a deep sleep.


"Hey," she heard in her dream. Someone was calling out to her but she hadn't the voice nor the energy to respond. It wasn't until the voice poked her in the ribs with a bony finger that she bolted awake. Her wide eyes met the form of a boy not much older than her by estimation. His hair was a dark brown and his eyes a deep chocolate. He was lean and looked far too clean and domestic to be wandering around dark alleys in the wee hours of the morning. He was smiling slightly as she studied him and studied her in return.

"What do you want?" She asked. Her head was still pounding but the sleep helped a little. She sat as far from him as possible but surprisingly it wasn't necessary and her headache was gradually receding. "He must be like Lily and Flame." she thought to herself.

"What are you doing out here?" He simply asked, unfazed by her question.

"What about you? You're in the alley too." she pointed out suspiciously

He just shrugged. "I ran away from my parents." He replied pointing to a back-pack beside him. "What about you? Did you run away from your parents too?"

"Sort of." she mumbled with a frown.

"Great. Then we can stick together. It will be harder to get caught if we do. They'll be looking for individuals."

She looked at him a moment obviously contemplating the offer. She knew nothing about this boy but finally realizing that she knew even less of the outside world, she nodded.

"So what's your name? Mine's Ethan." He offered.

"Meadow."

He smiled and stood up grabbing his back-pack and started walking out of the alley. When she didn't immediately follow he looked back with a raised eyebrow.

"You coming?"

She scrambled to her feet and asked where they were going.

"We can't stay in one place too long. That's how runaways get caught. Plus, an alleyway isn't the safest place to be in a city like this. We need to find someplace safe and then we can go buy some food."

She nodded then frowned. "We don't have any money."

Ethan offered her a boyish grin and then opened his back-pack slightly. There was a large wad of hundred, fifty and twenty dollar bills inside along with some clothes. Meadow's eyes widened as she stared.

Once again Ethan shrugged as he re-zipped the pack. "There's about five grand there. My folks were pretty well off. I doubt they'll even miss it. But it won't last long so we'll have to take it easy."

Meadow just nodded and followed him through the maze of alleyways and buildings.

As the sun started peeking over the horizon she had to stick closer to Ethan. The hordes of people were reeking havoc on her senses and it was all she could do to remain upright and walking after only a few minutes. Ethan noticed her discomfort and quickly found them a place to stay for the time being. By the time they got safely inside an old run-down flower shop Meadow was a deathly white and had been sick to her stomach a few times.

"Hey. Do you want to tell me what's wrong with you?" Ethan asked with a look of concern etched across his features.

Meadow offered him a weak smile. She was already feeling better now that she was away from the crowd and closer to Ethan. She grimaced and shook her head.


Ethan just gave a her a small smile and pushed it, "Aww come on."

"Maybe if you give one of those bottles of water."

He laughed and handed her a bottle of water to rinse out her mouth and to drink. "So now you going to tell me what happened out there or am I just going to have to guess that you have a severe case of the wily-nillys around crowds of people?"

Meadow took a gulp of her water and debated how much to tell him. Would he believe her? What if he turned her in? He had been so nice and helpful that she knew that he wouldn't do that, especially if he was a runaway too. She hadn't known him long but somehow she knew that she could trust him. She decided to tell him the truth.

"When I told you that I ran away I wasn't really telling the truth. I- sort of- escaped the man that made me the way I am."

"What's that mean?" He asked, pushing her to explain.

"Well, you know, special." She replied, avoiding the truth.

"Special how?" He pressed.

She sighed. "I can do things with my mind that nobody else can."

"Like what? Like float objects and stuff?"

"No that's Lily." She mumbled to herself.

"Ok... So what can you do?"

"I can control peoples minds. I can make them think things and believe things that I want them to. And, I can hurt them. Badly..." She said quitely remembering. "I didn't mean to but I was scared."

Ethan sat there a moment taking it in. At least he didn't flat out call her a liar to start with. Dr. Whitney had always pointed out that if she ever did escape and tell the world what he was doing that no one would believe her. They would lock her up and call her insane. It had been effective in preventing her from attempting to escape before but after the last experiment, she didn't care what happened to her as long as she got out from the Monster's clutches.

Ethan interrupted her thoughts by speaking.

"Ok." She breathed a sigh of relief. He believed her. "But that doesn't explain why you got so sick all of a sudden."

"Oh, well because of what I can do my head can't handle being around people. At all. I hear their thoughts, feel their emotions and it overloads my brain and makes me sick." She tried to sound nonchalant about it but in all honesty it terrified her.

"Then why can you be around me?" He asked, honestly curious.

"I'm not sure but I think you're like some of my friends back at the place I escaped from. They have the ability to draw away the negative effects of other people by just being around me. All I can figure is that you're like them only you do it naturally."

Ethan took a moment to process what she had said. Then he nodded "Ok. So show me."

"Show you? Show you what?"

"Show me how you control people."

For a moment she looked terrified. "E I don't want to hurt you. If I overload I could really do some damage."

"You won't. I trust you. Plus, if I'm like you said I was then that won't happen. I just want a small demonstration. This is kind of hard to accept you know."

Meadow felt a little crestfallen. So he didn't really believe her. She considered the pros and cons for a moment and then rather reluctantly nodded. Ethan took a place directly in front of her and waited. She took on a bored look for a moment as she began focusing on controlling Ethan's brain. He sifted uncomfortably but wasn't doing what she was commanding his brain to do.

For a moment she was surprised and showed it. Then she let a slow smile cross her face. "I think you have natural barriers. Some people do without even trying."

Ethan rolled his eyes obviously not really believing her. She smiled and began focusing fully on what she wanted him to do. Ethan was openly shocked when all of a sudden his finger shot up into his nose. His eyes widened considerably and his mouth dropped open in horror. Then suddenly he was up on his feet and hopping on one foot. He had no control over what he was doing. Shocked and more than a little bit freaked out he called for her to stop. Immediately all activity stopped and he fell to the floor from the loss of momentum.

Meadow rushed over to the dazed form of her new friend and asked him if he was all right.

"Yeah, I'm ok. That was a little bit freaky though. I can see how you could really hurt somebody doing that."

Meadow just nodded somberly. She knew all too well how deadly her gift could be.

"You said that you can make people believe things too?"

She nodded and smiled. Then all of a sudden he could swear that her skin was a bright neon-green. Once again his eyes widen in shock and she bursts out laughing.

"Just thought I'd show you without you asking this time." As she said it her skin became a nice normal color.

Ethan just shook his head in disbelief. "I have a feeling that life with you will never be boring my friend."

She smiled and he stood up.

"All right Mead. Lets go get some grub before we both starve to death." His stomach emphasized the statement with a growl,

She bit her lip as if unsure whether or not she should go with him. Obviously being near people wasn't a good thing. He grabbed her hand and she looked up at him.

"Hey, don't worry. Now that I know just how special you really are I promise that I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe OK? We're brother and sister from this point on and I won't let anything happen to you. I promise." He told her firmly.

Smiling at him and squeezing his hand in thanks she let him lead her out of the flower shop. Today was the beginning of the rest of her life.




Ok this chapter was just to give a little bit of background into Meadows life. The next chapter will be set in the present and 15 years later than this chapter. Hope you enjoyed.